#the haunting of sharon tate

[cinematic-literature]

The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019) by Daniel Farrands

Book title: Reincarnation and the Afterlife

[theflixdiary]

watched on Aug 26, 2020 on Prime Video

The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019) directed by Daniel Farrands

age rating: 18+ genre: psychological thriller, horror duration: 1h 34m country: United States language: English screenplay: Daniel Farrands

major cast: Hilary Duff, Jonathan Bennett, Lydia Hearst, Pawel Szajda, Ryan Cargill

plot summary: actress Sharon Tate (Hilary Duff) experiences unsettling dreams and foreboding visions of her own death, while exploring a fictionalised twist on the infamous events of 1969 that led to her tragic fate.

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read my thought below (may contain spoiler):

cw: images of torture, blood, dead bodies

this movie gets so much hate, and I can understand why they hate it - it's about Sharon Tate's tragedy, and people seems to misunderstand this movie to be a biopic, or a documentary movie. let me apologise in advance if you disagree with what I'm about to say beyond this line. my thoughts on this movie starts here: I went into The Haunting of Sharon Tate bracing for a typical retelling of that horrific 1969 night, but surprisingly, it took a different path – a sort of “what if” alternative reality that caught me off guard. if you’re a fan of psychological thrillers with a twist of horror, this might actually be worth a try, though it’s definitely not a strict biopic. I mean, yes, it’s based on a real story, but the focus here isn’t so much on historical facts as it is on surreal signs, unsettling dreams, and the mysteries of fate. imagine a thriller built on “what ifs” and eerie visions, which takes a swing at giving viewers a peek into Sharon Tate’s possible psychological state rather than a blow-by-blow of the tragic events. and, yes, let’s talk about Hilary Duff. I know, I know – she got criticised, and even bagged herself a Razzie for this, but hey, I have to say, she’s not that bad! it’s like she’s genuinely trying to break out of her Lizzie McGuire teen and her other romance-comedy shadow, and honestly, I didn’t see any of her Disney or rom-com vibes here. she’s really pushing to give Sharon Tate her own life and personality – vulnerable, scared, yet oddly hopeful. it’s not Oscar-winning stuff, sure, but it’s refreshing to see her dive into such a dark role. plus, her attempt to distance herself from her familiar “girl next door” image is clear, and I think she deserves a bit of applause for that.

the film’s direction has taken a fair bit of flak, but here’s where I find it interesting: it plays on those “what ifs” in a bold way. instead of just re-enacting the tragic events of that night, Farrands leans into suspenseful fiction, turning the whole scenario on its head. I read a lot of reviews that say “killer being killed, and the victim surviving,” about this movie, but I'm confused - what are they talking about? I can bet that these people actually didn't wait to leave their seats at the cinema, because it definitely sound like they missed the plot twist at the end of the movie. overall, if you’re into horror or psychological thrillers, give it a shot – but remember, this is a reimagining, not a history lesson. don’t walk into this film expecting accuracy to the real events. it’s trying to evoke the emotions, fears, and maybe even unspoken hopes of Tate, and that’s where it makes its mark. it's one of those “not perfect, but not as bad as people say” kind of movies. sure, the acting won’t blow your mind, and yes, the storyline feels a bit out there, but if you’re in the mood for something that goes off the beaten path of biopics, it’s worth a try. just don’t go in comparing it to actual events. watch it for what it is – a spooky, speculative twist on a real tragedy. watch it with an open mind.

poster credit: IMDb screencapped by me edited using canva

[sasa-chan]

Day 22:

Halloween Party

The Haunting of Sharon Tate

[taintedarabesque]

this is who I am in my head

[letsgethaunted]

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Episode 112: The Manson Family Murders, Part II Photodump

Image 01: A very pregnant Sharon Tate is folding baby clothes as she awaits the delivery of her child. Image 02: Sharon Tate and husband Roman Polanski were said to have been suffering marriage issues due to Roman Polanski’s frequent sexual affairs with other women. Image 03: Sharon Tate and ex-fiancé Jay Sebring remained good friends despite having once been engaged. Image 04: 10050 Cielo Drive, the home of Roman and Sharon, after the murder of 6 people took place August 8-9, 1969. Image 05: The La Bianca household after the murder of 2 people took place August 10, 1969. Image 06: Mugshots of 4 members of The Family who were designated with the task to murder. Tex Watson, Leslie Van Houten, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel (clockwise from top left). Image 07: Charles Manson mugshot. Image 08: Roman Polanski and friends offered a $25,000 reward to anyone who could bring information forward about the murder of Sharon Tate. Image 09: During the murder trial, the Family behaved bizarrely. The girls would often hold hands and sing in unison or mimic Manson’s words. Image 10: Charles Manson in prison. Despite the murder charges, people still idolize this man today. Before his death, the 80 year old Manson was set to marry a 26 year old girl who had been visiting him in prison. She dressed as the Family did back in 1969 and even shaved her head and drew an x on her forehead. WTF. What is your favorite conspiracy from this episode? Comment “🧪” if you think the CIA x Orange Sunshine LSD is the greatest collab of all time.

[mabelsguidetolife]

avoiding watching ‘blonde’ forever and ever because cousin norma jean was NOT like that

[hrrtshape]

𝓜Y 𝓕AME 𝒟R ✶

　 ﾟ　　⊹　₊　　𓏵　　˚　　 ∿

— ACTING scene.

Born to cinematic royalty, the daughter of […], a multiple Oscar-winning Russian director and actor, and […], an Oscar-winning French-Lithuanian model and actress, it seemed only natural that the spotlight found […]. From her very first steps into the industry, she was destined to shake the world.

Her first role as a precocious four-year-old in Ponette (2002) stunned audiences with an astonishing portrayal of grief and disillusionment, carrying the film’s themes of innocence lost with an eerie maturity. This debut set the stage for a career of bold, emotionally intense roles. By 2006, she had returned with Little Miss Sunshine as Olive, snatching up an Oscar nomination and making it clear that her raw talent was no passing phenomenon. With each subsequent role — Léon as Matilda, Atonement as Briony, True Grit, and Lolita in the titular role — she not only proved herself, but solidified her place as the youngest actor to hold the industry’s record for Oscar nominations.

Her meteoric rise continued through her adolescence. Moonrise Kingdom showcased her quirky charm, and at just 15, she won an Oscar for the haunting role of Nina Sayers in Black Swan (2013). The following year, she starred in The Grand Budapest Hotel, adding to her artistic credentials. After a brief break to delve into music, she returned with a bang in 2017, snagging another Oscar nomination for her nuanced portrayal in Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird meanwhile only being 19.

The following years unfolded like chapters from a film lover's dream, she transformed into the unforgettable Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Little Women marked another Gerwig-Chalamet collaboration, and her hauntingly layered performance in Strange Colours landed her dual Oscar nominations in 2020. Following these, however, she took a two-year hiatus, retreating from both the screen and the public eye.

In 2021, her triumphant return was cemented with Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, and she won yet another Oscar for Un Profil Perdu, a striking adaptation of Françoise Sagan's novel. She made her TV debut the same year as Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit, snagging her first Emmy and completing her EGOT status.

In the horror genre, she became an icon through her roles as Pearl and Maxine in Ti West’s trilogy, a chilling and mesmerizing presence that has become a classic. Balancing this with arthouse flair, she won another Oscar in 2024 for her work in Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things, an achievement that only further cemented her as one of the most versatile talents of her time. Continuing her partnership with Lanthimos, she next appeared in Kinds of Kindness and took on the subtlety of a supporting role as Livia Cardew in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Currently, she’s filming Frankenstein with Jacob Elordi, under the visionary direction of Guillermo del Toro.

— SINGING scene.

In 2015, at just 17, […] stunned the industry with her debut album, Born to Die. While her persona had leaned toward a softer, introspective vibe, this album unveiled a darker, bolder edge, sparking conversations on whether her artistry was more than mere nepotism. The album, which she described as “a homage to true love and a tribute to living life on the wild side,” received widespread acclaim and earned her a Grammy, forever reshaping the path for singers with an art-house, cinematic style.

A year later, she proved herself a versatile force with Ultraviolence. At 18, she shifted to a rawer, rock-inspired sound that echoed late ’90s ballads—an era drenched in gritty romance that she knew was bad, yet stayed and kept on yearning. With this album, she traded the glamour of her debut for smoky eyeshadows, hushed rebellion, and a sense of reckless freedom. A true chameleon, […] effortlessly moved through each theme, establishing her as not just a hitmaker but a storyteller with profound depth.

By 2017, she unveiled Honeymoon and Lust for Life. Honeymoon, delicate and introspective, was an ode to solitude—a quiet journey of self-reflection after the chaos of love and fame. Shedding leather jackets and gritty, abusive romances, and leaned into a softer aesthetic with oversized ’60s shades, capturing the bittersweet nostalgia of being alone. Though tranquil, Honeymoon pulsed with an intense emotional current, a transitional phase in her artistic journey—a chrysalis stage that would blossom with Lust for Life.

Turning just 20, […] released Lust for Life, describing its aesthetic as a “retro sensibility with a futuristic flare.” With this album, she found an equilibrium, blending hip-hop influences with her signature baroque pop. She shifted her gaze outward, integrating a budding political consciousness into her art. It was her goodbye to the heavier, beat-driven tracks of her past and a welcoming of a more introspective, hopeful phase—a celebration of life and resilience.

Then, in 2019, she gave the world Norman Fucking Rockwell! On her fifth album, she wove together themes of freedom, transformation, and the raw beauty of survival, solidifying her as one of America's most gifted songwriters. Lyrically rich and brimming with Americana references—from jazz and girl groups to Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Springsteen—NFR felt like an act of defiance, celebrating the multitudes within her. Pitchfork awarded it a rare 9.4, making NFR her highest-rated album to date, a crowning jewel in her musical legacy.

In 2021, after a long, silent hiatus, […] returned with her sixth album, The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, named in homage to the 2013 horror film of the same name. The album opens with the haunting ballad Without You Without Them, a reflective piece laced with gratitude, privilege, and the bittersweet reality of her upbringing. The tone shifts quickly, though, as tracks like Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires, Gibson Girl, and Ptolemaea dive into guilt, cynicism, and the inner torment that had long shadowed her life and career. With each track, she peels back more layers, embracing her darkness, fully leaning into themes of self-doubt and raw vulnerability. The album’s intensity reaffirmed her place as a visionary, a creator unafraid to blur the lines between beauty and brutality.

In 2023, she unleashed Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard, a sprawling, enigmatic odyssey through memory and myth. This seventh album is an embodiment of “psychoamericana,” a term that feels tailor-made for her evolution—a tangled journey through her personal folklore and the collective dreams of America. In an interview from 2014, where she once said she wished she was dead, and the media pounced on her, dissecting every word. Ocean Boulevard feels like a reclamation of that misinterpreted despair, an attempt to find rhythm in the chaos, a meditation in a misty forest of memories, with the strings and Wurlitzer tracing the delicate breadcrumbs of her reflections.

Looking ahead, […] has hinted at an upcoming album originally planned for September 2024 under the working title Lasso. Leaning toward country and Southern Gothic vibes, she explained her struggle with its identity, pausing its release as she wrestled with the album’s intensely American aesthetic. “It stopped feeling like me,” she confessed. Now, she promises a slightly lighter yet unmistakably pointed lyrical style, with classic Southern Gothic and country inflections. So far, there’s no set release date that is set in stone.

[polyhexian]

Admittedly I hadn't seen the "MH timeline" tag on Permission to bleed and for some reason assumed it was something that happened in eventually. Which of course made no sense to ne but I blamed it on me being sleep deprived because everyone else seemed to get it. Now that I know that Jasper's book is being turned into some disturbing bootleg movie I would like to say DEAR GOD. GOOD LORD. WHAT THE FUCK. Thank you for managing to shock me again and again with the same little guy. The agony I experience thinking of him /affectionately

asfdadsfasdf

YEAH I MEAN

ITS TRULY SO FUCKED UP PEOPLE DO THAT. im thinking specifically of "the haunting of sharon tate" and how insane it makes me. jesus fucking christ. so like. you KNOW someone would do it. he has a BOOK filled with DRAMA to adapt. you know it was tibbles idea

[esotericconsultingdetective]

my forever fixations (changes will be added.)

sitcoms (b99, modern family, bbt, himym, the office, friends, HOUSE MD)

benedict cucumberpatch and martin freeman (sherlock bbc, lord of the rings, the hobbit etc.)

ghosts&vampires&blood&sadists&gore&darkacademia&haunted places (frankenstein, jekyll and hyde)

english schoolgirls in the not creepy way (wild child, enid blyton boarding school books)

Harry Potter

Dead poet’s society

neil gaiman (coraline)

true crime

granada holmes

LOCKWOOD AND CO. MY BABIES

star trek and star wars in no particular order

spock

taylor swift and old washed up rock bands

pheobe effing bridgers

GRACIE ABRAMS est. 2020 (and the 2021 london show which i attended- my first concert 🥹)

kill her, freak out - samia

therese dreaming and maya hawke

art

raft of medusa

travelling

nerdinators

nerf guns

spy kids

peppa pig and ben and holly and gaston and nanny plum

emma chamberlain's fashion choices

the grisly origins of fairy tales

101 dalmations' original cruella deville.

horrid henry, captain underpants and phineas and ferb

LEGOOOO

evermore and folklore

lore by aaron manke

neurosurgery

fashun

crime podcasts

the history of mad hatters

interesting things to research about

indian royalty history

transylvania

Elizabeth Báthory (the blood countess)

agatha christie and miss marple

puzzle solving but i'm terrible at it (i’m awesome, i’m trying to be humble)

a deepening disgust at mortal fascination with each other.

aliens

d&d

mathematics

Lockwood and Co.

The sisters grimm

Land of stories

middle grade horror and fantasy books

my instagram threads account

tumblr shitposts

tumblr in general

pjo (ex induced)

scarlet and ivy

THE WELLS AND WONG DETECTIVE SOCIETY (robin stevens ily)

young adult dark fantasy without romance (check point 46)

my goodreads account

ada lovelace

franz kafka, virginia woolf.

my spotify playlists (ethel cain i love u)

joan of arc

rosalind franklin

ted ed videos

witch hunts in scotland and salem.

zoroastrian burials

sherlock and watson

my pinterest

amrita shergill

CRISPR

old disney shows

cricket and india's victory in WC in '83

jhansi ki rani

my childhood tv shows

my yt history

video essays

shane and ryan (watcher or buzzfeed unsolved)

chronically online

jude bellingham

Carlos sainz

a dreaded feeling of separation.

Elsa Schiaparelli

the kelly

monaco

f1

aux en provence

ireland

my artemis fowl phase

harry potter

wales

ryan reynolds and john krasinski

adam sandler movies and similar genres of shitty comedy

cobra kai and the karate kid

superheroes

spiderman variants

bucky and the falcon

charlize theron

vintage watches

conde nast traveller

delhi

benedict cucumberpatch

kristy thompson from the bsc

anne with an e

mr brightside

mitski

podcasts

the sixties, thirties and twentys

maggie smith (downtown abbey and loewe campaigns)

jane birkin

youtube fan edits

stranger things

the irregulars and haunting of hill house

gossip girl (fallacies and legacies)

meryl streep (mammia mia and the devil wears prada)

julie andrews (the sound of music, the princess diaries)

vintage movies

youtube short films and billy joel

the prisoner of azkaban

fred and george weasley and kili and fili

gandalf > dumbledore

margaret - ldr and jack antanoff

alicia and janet (the enid blyton cinematic universe)

sharon tate

my halloween blog 'gore'

arch digest house tours

new york because i'm just a girl

BBC SHERLOCK

Star Trek

the matrix

kill bill, fight club, dr. evil, ocean’s 11

The KJO cinematic universe

Nepo babies

Tim Burton

The Addams Family

Science

Biology

Physics

Chemistry

Mathematics x 2

Nerds

Conspiracy theories

Ethical research

female serial killers

elizabeth bathory

my spotify playlists

billy joel - piano man

youtube edits

saltburn

peppa pig & ben and holly

horrid henry

lost childhood animated tv shows

enid blyton boarding school books

british sitcoms (outnumbered)

house md

characters most like me list on charactour/ openpyschometrics.

the 2 IT zoya akhtar movies

special certain bollywood

teams in red - man united, Ferrari and RCB.

Formula 1, Tennis, Football & Cricket

Batman&Alfred (Christopher Nolan version duh!)

Dark Knight’s aesthetic

old marvel and DC movies

Superhero Comics

Richard Feynman

Haunted castles

Halloween and Halloween costumes (the only right answer is switching between batman and darth Vader or my Pinterest board)

LEGO (lotr, Harry Potter, marvel and DC lego)

Batman, iron man, and dr strange

ford v ferrari

shang chi

fight club and kill bill

Zack and Cody and phineas and ferb captain underpants

Karate kid and kung fu panda

karen from outnumbered

philomena cunk

Mercedes, Sebastian Vettel being a nerd and super awesome with pit overtakes, Brocedes + 2019 rookies and Maxiel

2012 grid

2023 george russel t pose

twitch quartet

Good food and masterchef australia

LUCA

black swan

Cool nepo babies (case in point romy mars (director of the tiktok vodka pasta video & Gracie frikking abrams ily)

F2 and f3

Horror movies

SHITTY COMEDYYY movie genre I.e. the hangover, grown ups, etc.

How to train your dragon (i had a dragon dinosaur phase so this is justified)

Lego ninjago

michelle mouton

derry girls

being an absolute effing genius

academia

saltburn aesthetic

letterboxd

Horror movies

Old marvel but deadpool revival

Minions

Breakfast at tiffany’s

Old movies (arsenic and old lace, wizard of oz)

Preminger and old Barbie movies

Old Disney movies (101 dalmations)

Merida and brave and Elsa and frozen

the one dance scene from the sleeping beauty

Movies with julie andrews and audrey hepburn and meryl streep

asha banks' and gracie abrams covering songs

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS + nosferatu

horror movies of all kinds (slashers, paranormal, psychological, all of them.)

Kickass (the movie)

DEAD POET’S SOCIETY

[mediamixs]

10 Worst Horror Movies of All Time

The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019) - Tasteless and disrespectful portrayal of the tragic murder of Sharon Tate, using her death for an unoriginal horror premise.

The Resort (2021) - Riddled with sound issues, technical errors, pacing problems, and a boring first half that fails to deliver on its haunting premise.

Jurassic Shark (2012) - Cheaply made shark movie that rarely focuses on the shark itself, instead following generic and boring human characters.

Alone in the Dark (2005) - One of the worst video game adaptations ever made, throwing out everything that made the original horror game series great.

Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) - Continues the iconic Hellraiser franchise with a generic and forgettable entry that fails to live up to the original.

The Guardian (1990) - Forgotten horror film that made Roger Ebert's worst-of list, with the acclaimed director William Friedkin failing to recapture the magic of The Exorcist.

Critters 2 (1988) - The movie lacked originality and poor production in this horror sequel.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) - Another horror sequel that failed in every sense

The Devil's Rain (1975) - This obscure horror film was a poor story.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) - The sequel to the original Hellraiser also failed.

[kylejsugarman]

top 10 most hated movies go

oh jude u understand my haterdom :') in no particular order.....

"the open house": netflix's low to mid-budget horror movies tend to be resoundingly boring with occasional glimmers of cleverness but "the open house" is genuinely one of the worst modern horror movies. at least "the bye bye man" had some unintentional laughs: "the open house" is one of the dullest, darkest, most boring excuses for a film ever made. it doesn't even have an ending, as if its expecting its audience to have fallen asleep before then and absolving it from coming to a real conclusion. AWFUL.

"escape from tomorrow": im not the biggest fan of jenny nicholson and her content, but she absolutely nailed it with her video taking down "escape from tomorrow". its an embarrassing ego trip with no semblance of story or thematic integrity. how can u secretly shoot a movie at disney world and be such an incompetent filmmaker and storyteller that the most interesting part of said film is the overdubbing of characters saying "neosporin" to avoid getting sued

"spencer": truly dont understand what the fuck anyone was on in applauding this film. "spencer" is basically "the haunting of sharon tate" with an arthouse filter over it. kristen stewart isn't a genius, this film was a depressing and embarrassingly voyeuristic slog, and i hope we all die

"la la land": a circle jerk about old hollywood masquerading as an "ode" to the movies and old movie musicals. pasek and paul need to be barred from the industry for their horrendous songs and chazelle should be ashamed of this masturbatory piece of insubstantial garbage that frames white mediocrity and paper-thin romance as the pinnacle of cinema. also it's just racist as fuck

"split": m night has made some awful movies and i have problems with almost all of them, but jesus christ, "split" is truly fucking vile. even putting aside the obvious demonization of personality disorders and james mcavoy's laughable performance, it's a boring, uninspired slog with a screenplay written on a fisher play laptop. also the theme of horrific trauma being something that makes u Special and intrinsically a Survivor?? kys

"the polar express": this one's a little irrational, ive just always hated this movie even as a kid. the cgi isnt just creepy, its so muddled and lifeless that it can't distract from the interminable running time. this movie feels 4 hours long and its like getting ur teeth drilled the whole time.

"the sandlot": this movie exists solely for men in their forties to reflect on and say "they don't make kid movies like this any more". it is so unbelievably grating and pointless. im biased because baseball is my idea of torture, but id rather sit thru 16 hours of "minions" content than watch one scene of this kids' "classic".

"easy A": idk WHAT people see in this one. i dont find a single aspect of this film charming or clever or funny, it all feels so shallow and wink wink nudge nudge aren't we SO clever for turning THIS teen stereotype on its head?? there are a lot of "subverting ur expectations!!!!" movies from this era of late late 2000s-mid 2010s that i really dislike, but "easy A" is just the pinnacle of insufferable.

"the breakfast club": this might inspire some hate but i despise this film lol. i dont care that its a seminal work or whatever, it is so crushingly unfunny and boring and filled to the brim with unlikeable characters. in the same vein as "easy A", none of this film is charming or clever and even giving grace to the more Outdated aspects of this film, its a grossly obnoxious, unengaging flop that thinks it's saying Something.

"a serbian film": look. we could sit here for hours debating the necessity of this film and what it says about censorship, especially in eastern europe, but at the end of the day, this is a cold, uncreative shock film that indulges in its own depravity. im not above fucked up movies with depraved elements, but "a serbian film" seems manufactured, not created in its depravity. also it perpetuates the myth of the "porn to snuff pipeline", which is a huge issue with a lot of films of this ilk.

[ghostwood7]

It was in June of 1932 that director Paul Bern married actress, Jean Harlow. Four months later, on September 5, the marriage ended rather suddenly when Paul Bern, standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror, shot himself in the head with a .38 calibre pistol. The butler found his nude body.

Flash forward to 1968. A well respected Hollywood hairstylist lived in the old house and was dating a young starlet who had moved to LA from Texas. One day he asked her to house sit for him while he went out of town on business for a day or two. She agreed. That night, while she slept, she was awakened by a loud noise. She turned on the light and saw a man in the bedroom. He was ransacking the place as if looking for something important. He turned and looked at the young woman and that was when she recognized him. She also saw the bullet hole in his head next to his right temple and it was spirting blood. It was Paul Bern! The young woman fled from the bedroom, but as she got to the top of the stairs, she was met by an even more ghastly sight. Tied to the newel post at the bottom of the stairs...was her lover. His throat had been cut from ear to ear and was gushing blood!! The noises in the bedroom of Paul Bern's ghost got louder. Overcome by the horrors she had seen she fainted. The next day, her lover returned from his trip and she told him of the horrific apparitions she had seen the night before. He tried to comfort her and dismissed them. Little did they know that what she saw was a terrifying warning of the horrific fate which awaited them both almost one year later.....at the murderous hands of the Manson Family. The man's name was Jay Sebring. The woman was Sharon Tate. #Hollywood #Ghosts #Paranormal #Hauntings #SharonTate, #JeanHarlow #MansonFamily, #Crime, #Murders #LosAngeles #LA #SoCal #California #Taphophile #Travels

[90363462]

How Johnny Cash Ended Up Covering Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’

Jared LinnenPublished: November 22, 2022

This is the story of Johnny Cash's iconic cover of "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails.

By the early ‘90s, Johnny Cash had fallen from grace. He’d spent much of the 1980s increasingly marginalized, chasing trends instead of setting them, and ultimately, Columbia, his record label of 25 years, dropped him. At the same time, he was recovering from a drug addiction relapse and health problems were creeping in. Johnny’s future in the music business was looking bleak.

It was after a show in 1992, where Johnny was approached by a young and hot record producer with an idea to help revitalize his career. Def Jam records co-founder, Rick Rubin, was at that show, and saw a still-vital artist who didn’t deserve an early sunset.

“I said, ‘If you had me on your record label, what would you do that nobody else has done?’” Cash recalled asking Rubin. “And he said, ‘What I would do is sit you in front of a microphone and record any song you want. Just you and the guitar.’ [I said,] ‘You’re talking about a dream I had a long time ago.’”

Back in the early ‘90s, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor rented out a Los Angeles house to write and record a new album. It was the famous house where Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered by the Manson family in the ‘60s. Reznor was not in a good spot emotionally — he was struggling with his new found fame and his sense of identity. To cope with his depression, he wrote a brutal depiction of self-loathing and emotional numbness that began, “I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel.”

Reznor later called the song “a valentine to the sufferer." He sings the verses quiet and intimately, followed by the chorus where it feels like Trent’s releasing all the pain he felt inside of him.

“I’ve always had a sadness and a sense of of abandonment, I think, haunting me and never feeling like I fit in anywhere,” Reznor told Song Exploder. “Always feeling like an outsider. It’s not rational, it just happens often.”

Ultimately, Reznor was flattered a man of Johnny Cash’s stature would consider covering “Hurt,” so he gave the go-ahead.

Johnny’s version ended up more bare-bones. Acoustic guitar, with tasteful touches of organ and piano, which allowed Johnny’s aged and weathered voice to cut through, but it’s clear that age didn’t take anything away from Johnny’s greatness. His weakened voice allowed him to convey emotion in a deeper way, and you believe the wisdom he’s espousing.

“The lyrics have such a profound sense of regret,” Rubin told Lex Fridman. “And to hear, when you’re 20 years old, talking about regret, it’s heartbreaking, but it’s heartbreaking in a different way because you have your whole life to figure it out. When you’re looking back at your life at the end of your life with regret. It’s brutal. It’s brutal.”

What really changed the meaning of “Hurt” and what would lift it to a whole other level was the video. Directed by Mark Romanek, it unfolded like a mini-biography, blending archival footage, home movies, and a performance as strong as the song itself. Aware that he had little time to shoot the video, Mark flew to Tennessee to meet Johnny and found the perfect location — a decaying museum built in Johnny’s honor, the House of Cash Museum. In it, Mark uncovered stacks of old footage. A lightbulb went off when one of the first reels he watched showed a young Johnny riding a train. There was something about the footage of Johnny as a young, vibrant man, cut to him near the end of his life in a weathered old museum, that was undoubtedly powerful.

Three months after the video shoot, Johnny’s wife, June Carter Cash, died. Johnny himself died months later, just under a year after the release of American IV, his album with “Hurt” on it. It would end up being Johnny’s first album to achieve gold status in the U.S. in more than 30 years.

“Hurt” is a prime example of how powerful music can be. What was originally intended to be morose, insecure, and intimate, was a song juxtaposed with a country legend that was beautiful, emotional and introspective. Even though an industrial rock band like Nine Inch Nails penned this dark song that read like a suicide note, it transcended genre to prove that ultimately, the song only deals in one currency… genuine heartfelt emotion.

Watch the story of Johnny Cash's "Hurt" in the video below.

The Greatest Cover Song of All Time?

Rockers We've Lost in 2022

Rock + Metal Musicians Who Died in 2022

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[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: We Are Mary Shelley’s Monster by Danielle Byington

ADVANCE ORDER: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/we-are-mary-shelleys-monster-by-danielle-byington/

We Are Mary Shelley’s Monster tunes in to #history and the present through poetry from the author’s perspective, as well as how and where those moments exist collectively for the rest of the world. Frequently, #mythology ushers the reader through this chapbook, either in the context of ancient gods and goddesses or modern figures and celebrities. This crafting of the past within the present through familiar names and events intends to highlight the damage done, but also remind us of how we might heal on humanity’s circular path.

Danielle Byington is an educator, author, and artist. Her poetry has been published by various outlets, and her first chapbook is The Absurdity of Origins (Dancing Girl Press, 2019). Byington’s visual art—a significant backdrop to her poetry—has been part of exhibits, public art installations, permanent collections, journals, and cover art. Her ardor for the intersection of language and visual arts manifested in 2020, as she created the educational business Sight into Insight, an ambition which has received a number of grants for research, creating literature-based videos, and a series of paintings. Byington enjoys life with her Shakespearean better half and three ridiculous cats.

PRAISE FOR We Are Mary Shelley’s Monster by Danielle Byington

Danielle Byington’s We Are Mary Shelley’s Monster troubles the divide between the ordinary and the sublime. These poems teeter on the edges of beauty and of horror, wrestling with preternatural muses/demons such as the bronze coil of a dead cottonmouth, “dreaming bad dreams with me / about humanity’s white mouth,” and the haunting image of Sylvia Plath’s strappy high heel shoes. Painterly and literary, Byington’s poems offer “the past stitched to the present” in a remarkable tapestry. Her poems detail “our connection to the red line of history, / and other time-sensitive things like newspapers and flowers.” These poems warn that our breath is dangerous, a possible poison contributing to the deterioration of artifacts and knowledge. Even so, We Are Mary Shelley’s Monster sings with marvel and hope in the face of ongoing threats and decay just “as autumn / referees all things to rust.”

–Emily Rosko, Poetry Editor at Crazyhorse/swamp pink

We Are Mary Shelley’s Monster is a book of brilliant ghosts, of headless snakes, of the moon falling from the sky, of Anna Nicole Smith’s beauty mark, Sharon Tate’s remarkable hair, and Sylvia Plath’s final pair of shoes. Readers encounter the water-bound spirit of Virginia Woolf and chase the troubled genius that haunts the legacy of Zelda Fitzgerald, where even the rain that falls in Asheville is “trying to tap her awake/…easing us all toward paradise.” As a multi-disciplinary artist and a comprehensive scholar of literature, Danielle Byington invites us into the serious collaboration that happens between viewers and texts and reminds us that the world is a text we are reading, from the insurrectionist absurdity of “masculine livestock on the Capitol stairs” all the way back to the light emanating from Plato’s cave. The range of reference and the depth of perception are dazzling in her unforgettable book. Byington creates poems that illuminate our interactions with art and culture, and that prompt us to consider how deeply our lives are made and remade by the works of art we engage.

–Jesse Graves, author of Merciful Days and Said-Songs: Essays on Poetry and Place

Danielle Byington’s We Are Mary Shelley’s Monster paints a portrait of Zelda Fitzgerald poured into air and of a snake’s white skull, of Anna Nicole Smith riding the bareback of methadone and of a rabid dog’s bottomless barks. With these startling poems, Byington gives us beautiful women who have bookended what men have barely started. This is a book full of moments that give us new names for both history and ourselves.

–Karen Salyer McElmurray, author of Wanting Radiance and Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems #history #mythology

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week #108 (Year 3 / Week 4):

Un Flic, Jean-Pierre Melville’s last moody flick, a French Heist Noir. With Alain Delon playing the cop this time instead of the crook, and Catherine Deneuve just showing her beautiful self. A minimalist exercise in style and genre. 4/10.

🍿 

7 more by Polanski:

🍿 His genial first film, Knife in the water, as strong as some of cinema’s best debut features (‘Citizen Kane’, ‘Sex, lies and videotapes’, ‘Badlands’, ‘Breathless’, ‘The Iron Giant’, ‘Margin call’, ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf’, Etc). Co-written by Jerzy Skolimowski (Whose ‘EO’ I just saw last week, and whose complete canon I am going to pursue). A very tense psychological power game with only three players, which surprisingly does not end in violence. A terrific saxophone score. 8/10.

🍿 Venus in Fur, a surprising discovery! Featuring only two characters on an actual Parisian stage, a playwright who looks like a young Polanski, and his real-life wife Emmanuelle Seigner, as an actress who shows up late for an audition. it’s an engaging erotic power-play, a masochistic love story, and it deals with repression, domination, role playing, degradation and cross-dressing. A perfectly-dark subject matter for this brooding director. 9/10.

🍿 For his next number, Polanski directed his wife in another tight two-hander, Based on a True Story, with similar slow-burning psychological threats. This time about a depressed writer who is being befriended by Eva Green, a super obsessive jealous admirer. Co-written with Olivier Assayas, with some inside literary throwaway lines about Amos oz , Cormac McCarthy and Don DeLillo. 6/10.

🍿 First watch: The Pianist. I found the first 1/3 of the film artificial and glossed out in the worst-traditional Hollywood way: Everything was ‘too nice’, and too clean, and not horrible enough. Later in the ghetto and toward the end as Warsaw gets destroyed, it became a bit more “real”, if you can call it that. I can’t stand most movies about the holocaust, because they obviously have to smooth things out, make them palatable. Lanzmann’s ‘Shoah’ was an exception. Coincidentally, I saw it on Friday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

(Also, how did they shave in the holocaust?...)

🍿 Both ‘The Pianist’ from Warsaw and his Parisian The Tenant were made in English, which made it impossible to take them seriously. The tenant is the last of Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy”, but it doesn’t compare to ‘Repulsion’ or ‘Rosemary’s Baby’. I can’t remember how original were the themes of sexual guilt, anxiety, cross-dressing and paranoia in 1976, but they surely didn’t age well.

🍿 “...It won't hold. I won't build it. It's that simple - I am not making that kind of mistake twice...”

To me, Chinatown is one of the ‘Best films of all time’. It’s like a song I can listen to again and again and again.

The quintessential LA film, the haunting nostalgia to an era that existed only on celluloid. A perfect dark Noir on every level: the perfect screenplay, the masterful sound and score, even the character names are iconic, Lieutenant Lou Escobar, Russ Yelburton, Hollis Mulwray, Noah Cross, Emma Dill. And Jake “Gits” who appears in every scene and gradually being pulled into the tragic mystery together with us, not realizing that he is played for a fool. This film is about duality, (Sister/daughter, money/power, water/drought, the city and the valley) and about ‘Eyes that are Flawed’. Always 10/10.

🍿 I was planning on seeing all of the Polanski movies I haven’t seen yet, but I had to stop after The Fearless Vampire Killers. Good for him for meeting Sharon Tate during the shooting of this lame Central European vampire ‘parody’, but it took me 3 days to finish it, it was so so tedious. 1/10.

If I were to write a new vampire comedy today, I would call it ‘Garlic’.

🍿

“Life is brief; fall in love, maidens, before the crimson bloom fades from your lips . . .”  Ikiru, Kurosawa’s timeless retelling of Tolstoy’s ‘Death of Ivan Ilyich’ about the ‘meaning of life’. A terminally-ill salaryman realizes that he never really lived.

I plan on taking a deep dive into Takashi Shimura‘s vast portfolio. 🍿 

3 with Alba Rohrwacher, 2 by Paolo Genovese:

🍿 The pupils, a short by Alice Rohrwacher (who directed some episodes of Elena Ferrante‘s ‘My brilliant Friend’). A somehow-related topic to ‘Friend’, it tells of a group of young girls at a Catholic boarding school during the war, and stars Alice’s sister Alba as the Mother Superior. The day after watching it, I was surprised to read that it was nominated for the 2023 Oscars!

🍿...”How many couples would split up if they looked at each other’s phones?”...

Perfect strangers is a perfectly acceptable drama about a group of middle class friends who meet during an eclipse of the moon for their regular dinner. But this time they decide to play a game, and leave their phones in the middle of the table. It’s dark, dialogue-rich, witty and intelligent. 7/10.

This movie has a completely unique history though: Since 2016, it had been re-made into 24 versions, in 24 countries - I never heard of any other movie like that!

🍿 Genovese next metaphorical film, The Place, from the following year, had one of the most unusual stories I ever saw on film. It all takes place at a small cafe where an ordinary looking man meets with various people, and grants them any wish they have, if they perform an arbitrary task he assign them. Yes, it’s the story of Faust, and yes, apparently is is based on a concept from an earlier Canadian TV-show, but I found it absolutely fascinating. 9/10. 

🍿 

Another nominee for this year’s Oscars, My year of dicks. A feminist animation short about a 15-year-old girl in the early 90′s who is determined to lose her virginity. Explicit, real talk and original about the first sexual experience from a girl’s point of view.

🍿

2 award-winners from Finland:

🍿 Grand Prix winner at Cannes, Compartment Number 6 is different: It starts in a claustrophobic, uncomfortable and compact sleeping car train, which a Finnish woman has to share with a gruff and unfriendly Russian miner. This is the first film I ever hoped to see from the bleak, arctic desert of Murmansk. It ends up literally at the edge of the world, with wide and endless frozen landscapes all around. 8/10. 

🍿 The White Reindeer, a 1952 folk horror tale about a Sami woman, wife of a arctic reindeer herder, who turns into a witch in order to make her new husband attracted to her. Not too interesting.

🍿

You people, a new rom-com. It started frantically in a upper-middle-class, plugged-in Brentwood synagogue on Yom Kippur with super hipster Jonah Hill’s family that made me wanna throw up. But soon it turned into a super-sweet romance of super-sensitive Jewish Hill who falls for Eddie Murphy’s black daughter, and sometimes-funny update to ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner’ 55 years later. Eventually it fizzled out into a typical Netflix-level sitcom. 3/10.

🍿   

2 unrelated depression musicals:

🍿 "Never again will I allow women to wear my dresses!”

Israel Beilin’s (Irving Berlin’s) musical Top Hat with Frederick Austerlitz (Fred Astaire) and Virginia Katherine McMath (Ginger Rogers). Wonderful high-society dance numbers (mostly in single-shot) in great rooms with 20 ft. ceilings. (Photo Above). 🍿 Re-watching Pennies from Heaven, a strange and uneven musical soap opera by Herbaert Ross. The musical numbers with Steve Martin,Bernadette Peters and Christopher Walken lip-syncing and dancing in Busby Berkeley-style extravaganza, were marvelous. But the depressing drama about a drifting, amoral and horny sheet music salesman who falls in and out of love with a mousy teacher turned prostitute was appalling. It does re-create (nicely, but for no apparent reason) Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks in one scene, and also uses a scene from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ ‘Follow the fleet’ as background, in another.

🍿 

Re-watching the revenge flick Law Abiding Citizen with non-actor Gerard Butler. I remembered it as a technologically-sophisticated ‘fight for justice’ story. But no: It was just sadistic entertainment for sadists, which opened with a brutal child-killing and Clockwork Orange rape, and and continued from there. 2/10.

🍿 

Stand up with Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal. Leaning hard into his hapless Jian Yang character from ‘Silicon Valley”.

Bonus: 25 minutes of The best of Jian-Yang.

🍿 

Throw-back to the art project: 

Adora in Chinatown (again).

🍿

(My complete movie list is here)

[nataliawoods]

it makes me want to throw up that sharon tate's wedding dress ended up in that zak bagan haunted "museum" in las vegas, the classiest of all places. and he has ch*rles m*nson shit in there too, which is the worst part of all. his shit needs to be burned and not allowed anywhere near anything to do with sharon wtf is wrong with these people.